Poets Archive: Guillaume Apollinaire

As I lay in the trenches at Noove Chapelle, Where the big guns barked like the  Hounds o’ Hell Sez I to mysel’, sez I to myse’l: – Billy, me boy, here’s the end o’ you – But if, by good luck, ye should chance to slip thro’, Ye maun bid all yer evil companions adieu;  Continue Reading »

The dead spake together last night, And one to the other said: ” Why are we dead?” They turned them face to face about In the place where they were laid: “Why are we dead?” You can read the rest of the poem here https://archive.org/stream/northernnumbers00macd#page/78/mode/2up/search/lee

I look around this desolate land The gunshots seem to come hand in hand I see the bodies that were once called men But some of the faces reveal boys of ten Their bodies wounded, drip of fresh blood Their faces, still, are covered with mud You can read the rest of this poem on  Continue Reading »

What shall I bring to you, wife of mine? When I come back from the war? A ribbon your dear brown hair to twine? A shawl from a Berlin store? Say, should I choose you some Prussian hack When the Uhlans we overwhelm? Shall I bring you a Potsdam goblet back And the crest from  Continue Reading »

Ye sleepers, who will sing you? We can but give our tears — Ye dead men, who shall bring you Fame in the coming years? Brave souls . . . but who remembers The flame that fired your embers? . . . Deep, deep the sleep that holds you Who one time had no peers.  Continue Reading »

Lad, with the merry smile and the eyes Quick as a hawk’s and clear as the day, You, who have counted the game the prize, Here is the game of games to play. Never a goal — the captains say — Matches the one that’s needed now: Put the old blazer and cap away —  Continue Reading »

I GLOOM! An October like November; August a hundred thousand hours, And all September, A hundred thousand, dragging sunlit days, And half October like a thousand years . . . And doom! That then was Antwerp. . . In the name of God, How could they do it? Those souls that usually dived Into the  Continue Reading »

One writes to ask me if I’ve read Of ‘the Jutland battle,’ of ‘the great advance Made by the Russians,’ chiding—’History is being made These days, these are the things That are worth while.’ These! Not to one who’s lain In Heaven before God’s throne with eyes abased, Worshipping Him, in many forms of Good,  Continue Reading »

Over the top! The wire’s thin here, unbarbed Plain rusty coils, not staked, and low enough: Full of old tins, though — “When you’re through, all three, Aim quarter left for fifty yards or so, Then straight for that new piece of German wire; See if it’s thick, and listen for a while For sounds  Continue Reading »

God! How I hate you, you young cheerful men, Whose pious poetry blossoms on your graves As soon as you are in them, nurtured up By the salt of your corruption, and the tears Of mothers, local vicars, college deans, And flanked by prefaces and photographs From all you minor poet friends—the fools— Who paint  Continue Reading »

Open the gates for me, Open the gates of the peaceful castle, rosy in the West, In the sweet dim Isle of Apples over the wide sea’s breast, You can read the rest of the poem on the poeticous site https://www.poeticous.com/c-s-lewis/death-in-battle?locale=en This was his first publication outside a school journal and was published in the  Continue Reading »

Herbert Read attempted in ‘Kneeshaw Goes to War’ to focus on the individual human predicament by describing a particularised incident (Hilda D. Spear, Remembering, We Forget, Davis-Poynter, 1979, p.64) A man who was marching by Kneeshaw’s side Hesitated in the middle of the mud, And slowly sank, weighted down by equipment and arms. He cried  Continue Reading »

Green gardens in Laventie! Soldiers only know the street Where the mud is churned and splashed about By battle-wending feet; And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of grass — Look for it when you pass. Beyond the church whose pitted spire Seems balanced on a strand Of swaying stone and tottering  Continue Reading »

There is no fitter end than this. No need is now to yearn nor sigh. We know the glory that is his, A glory that can never die. Surely we knew it long before, Knew all along that he was made For a swift radiant morning, for A sacrificing swift night-shade. Published in Marlborough and  Continue Reading »

On the 31st day of August in the year 1914 I left Deauville shortly before midnight In Rouveyre’s little car Including his chauffeur there were three of us We said goodbye to a whole epoch Furious giants were looming over Europe The eagles were leaving their eyries expecting the sun Voracious fishes were swimming up  Continue Reading »